Virtual strangers as friends come with baggage

THE THING about technology is that it’s all very nice while it works, but when it stops working – as it inevitably does, sooner or later – it requires a technologist to fix it. Well, that makes sense, I suppose. Duh! When your shoes break you need a shoemaker, not a proctologist.

I enjoy the freedom of being able to communicate with the world from my little tablet thingy.

I can sit on my patio and write a Tavern column or send yet another picture of my cat to my daughter in Canada, or see how much money I have left in my bank account, all at the tickle of a non-existent keyboard, which is actually just a picture of a keyboard.

From time to time, I receive requests from strangers wanting to be my friends, and as I’m a naturally friendly sort of chap, I say yes, of course you can be my friend.

I wouldn’t want to be churlish enough to say: “Bugger off. I have enough friends”. I mean, can anybody have too many friends?

The trouble is that all these strangers who are now my friends come with a lot of personal baggage.

Apparently I am now expected to wish them “happy birthday” and celebrate their “work anniversaries”.

Should I really care that somebody called Willy Pootle is celebrating his fourth work anniversary? I click on my calendar and find almost every day is somebody’s birthday.

There’s hardly enough space left on the date to remind myself I have a dentist’s appointment.

This is where I put my pride in my pocket and send out a plea to any technologists who happen to read this column: can somebody please tell me how to get rid of birthdays on my calendar?

I don’t wish to be unfriendly, but I really don’t need to know that next Monday is Frikkie Jansen or Mary McTooty’s birthday.

Even if I actually knew Frikkie or Mary, I would probably not wish them a happy birthday.

I do that for close family members (if I remember) and special friends.

To make matters worse, each birthday reminder comes with a tiny picture of a ribbon-wrapped present. It comes close to social blackmail.

I don’t wish to erase birthdays of people I actually know.

It’s the hordes of uninvited hangers-on whose birthdays I’d like to shed, if possible without hurting any feelings. I don’t think most of them even realise that by clicking on a Facebook friend request, they are clogging up a hundred calendars of people they don’t even know.

Last Laugh

Cousin James came on holiday from Johannesburg and stayed with family who lived in Fish Hoek. Cousin James had definite opinions about everything.

One afternoon, his uncle came home from work and asked his son Tom where James was.

“Well,” said Tom, “if he knows as much about kayaking as he thinks he does, he has gone kayaking. If he knows as much about kayaking as I think he does, he’s gone swimming.”